Coronavirus 

                                                   (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Answering Postmodernism 

In my last post, I broached the worldview called postmodernism. I disagree with postmodernism for several reasons. Let’s consider a couple of them today.

In the first obvious place, it is a philosophical position that is inconsistent with itself. It leads to contradiction so blatant that one can safely assume its premises must be flawed. If every view of the world or of truth is partial and flawed, then why should I trust the views of any of the postmodernists? Thus, postmodernism can be written off in a single breath. 

But in the second, more important place, there is an alternative to postmodern thinking, an alternative that makes better sense. It is called science.

It is true, as the pomos say, that every person’s nurture/culture inclines him/her toward ways of thinking and of expressing thought that are limited by that person's sets of basic concepts and terms, ones that are familiar in their culture. I tend to think most readily using ideas that I learned from my culture. So does everyone.

But the discussion does not stop there. Admitting that we are channeled in our thinking - we are limited, by the ways of thinking we acquire from our cultures - does not change the world. Reality is what it is. There may be many cultures out there, many ways of life, but we all must live in what is.

The easiest way to access the ways of thinking that are familiar in a culture is to look at the language of the people of that culture. For example, Spanish has two words – “ser” and “estar” – for the English verb “to be”. English has only “to be” for expressing the same idea. Similarly, French contains two verbs for the English verb “to know” – “savoir” and “connaitre”.

How do such differences affect thinking? On the surface, we can surmise that they must affect thinking profoundly. Being and knowing are vital concepts. And these are very simple examples. The ways in which people from different cultures think differently and, as a result, can misunderstand each other, are often very complex.

But reality is still reality. If any tribe’s culture leads that tribe’s members to live in ways too radically separated from physical reality, that way of thinking, that culture, will die out because the people who adhere to it will die out. No matter the thinking limits instilled in me by my culture, reality is not defined by culture.

A forest fire is real. I have evacuated as ordered. But yes, I worry my house is going to burn down. It is rational for me to fear fire. No sequence of thoughts in my brain is going to make that fire go out. People are going to have to fight it physically, or alternatively, get out of its way and wait until it burns itself out.

My people’s culture may contain some useful ideas about how to fight forest fires. These may improve the odds of my people’s putting this fire out more quickly than would be the case if we didn’t understand how to fight forest fires. But my culture, and my thinking with its concepts will have no direct effect on the wall of flame bearing down on me. Not even if I think till I sweat. The fire is what it is. We must fight it physically or get out of its way or get burned up.    

Whether or not, during our hike, you have stepped on a nail and driven it into your foot is not a matter of whether your culture has a word for “nail”. And yes, actually, in that situation, I would urge you to get medical help quickly, even if we had trouble communicating. If you would let me, I’d take you to a hospital. Whether you will get tetanus is not a matter that depends on whether there is a word for “nail” in my culture, your culture, or any other culture. You need a tetanus shot now, or you run a large risk of dying in a horrible way.   

In fact, it may be very useful and informative later for you and I to discuss what the disease called “tetanus” is, what it is caused by, and what its effects are. We may learn medical knowledge from each other. Your culture may know a herb that grows in the bush nearby which can be used to ease pain. That herb may really work. I may learn from you. The herb might even ease your pain if you begin to suffer with tetanus. But we should not leave that rusty nail wound untreated. If we are close to a hospital, you need not endure the symptoms of tetanus. In reality, we should take action right now to save you from pain and, likely, death.

A culture is just a set of ideas, customs, and concepts, that a tribe use to understand the physical world and to direct their actions in that world. Over generations, it can become enormously complex. A human tribe can develop whole sets of ideas and behaviors that ease the tribe's interfacing with physical reality and with each other.

But the nail and the fire are real whether anyone sees them or not.

Covid was, and is, not a matter of one’s culture or the judgements one forms as one thinks with terms that are familiar in one’s culture. It’s a virus. If I get it, it will not delay its action to suit whether or not my culture has a word for it.

The same is true of thousands of other matters. Global warming is not going to halt its effects on my homeland because my culture does not have a word for it.

My perceptions in any of the situations above are not guaranteed true. Nor are the measures recommended by the sciences of my Western culture one hundred percent guaranteed effective. Science does not say that. But I do know that in every one of those situations, I can envision several different ways in which I might respond, and I can estimate the odds of effectiveness for each of the alternative courses of action I could take. Then, I can do my best to act rationally. Pick and follow the response most likely to bring me success. Bet on the plans which I believe offer the best odds of guarding the lives of myself and my loved ones.

One possible plan is that I could refuse to do anything about whatever is happening. Postmodernism may have convinced me that it is all an illusion anyway.   

I could choose to hide in my house, against the evacuation order from the local police. I have a garden hose, that I hope will still be getting water pressure, with which to fight the fire on my own if it does come my way. A garden hose against flames varying from 60 to 200 feet high, hot enough to melt tires on deserted cars. But fighting it myself is a possible course of action.

I could choose not to get vaccinated for Covid, in spite of the experts’ warnings.

But I am a man who tends to listen to science. I’m not a fire fighter. I’m not a virologist or an epidemiologist. I’ve read experts’ views on websites online and in newspapers and magazines. They seem more sensible to me than the alternative explanations offered by some of their critics. I estimate the odds of which expert is most likely to be accurately describing reality. I bet on what I believe are my best horses. Mostly, I follow experts’ advice. I read up on several analyses for every decision I have to make. But then, I go with the ones that make sense.

In short, for every matter, we have alternatives. We aren’t stuck with a single option that may be flawed or purposely distorted by people looking to exploit us. Most of all, we have choices, not all of which are equally rational.

At worst, I can always opt out of any mess by killing myself. Camus says staying alive takes more character than dying, once you see that suicide is an option.

Any of my beliefs could be misperceptions or misconceptions acquired from my culture. But that never means I have no alternatives. I always have alternatives, each with its own odds, as calculated by me, of leading to good results. What the nihilists, existentialists, deconstructionists, and postmodernists don’t seem to get is that the alternative worldview, which is a real alternative to their doubting is the profound worldview called science.  

Science does not claim to see ultimate truths about any subject. It only claims to offer us a method by which we can see more and more alternate explanations and options for action for every situation we may face in the physical world. It shows us how to keep fine tuning our policies and actions to get better and better results, for more people, more of the time.

Science answers the cynical, impotent view recommended by Postmodernism and its adherents simply by saying: “Your policy is not rational.” Total cynicism isn’t necessarily, logically wrong. For science, it’s just irrational.

We have choices. They are never all of equal likelihood of success. To not exert ourselves to choose rationally among them contradicts the very roots of life. Yes, life is often confusing, dangerous, and painful. No, that does not mean I should give up. I have choices.  

Science uses a whole set of criteria to judge the likelihood of any model/theory.

Can it be tested in the real, objectively observable world that all rational people accept is around us all the time? If it can’t, it isn’t science.

Are there people studying this phenomenon systematically? What theories or models have they proposed? What research has been done on each of these theories? Have the studies been published in reputable journals with records of being accurate in the past? Have the articles been peer-reviewed? What does the latest research indicate is the most probable theory? What course of action is the most rational one for me to take once I have answered these questions? 

In every situation, I estimate odds. Decide whether I should act. If so, in what way.

I can choose to be one of the ones who proposes and researches any way of viewing and understanding any phenomenon whatsoever. Postmodernism may be able to prove that no humanly constructed idea about anything is logically unassailable and therefore, perfectly reliably true. But I don’t need perfect truth in order to act. Only alternatives among which to choose.  

There is nothing new here. We have been considering alternative views of reality and trying to design our actions to give ourselves and our kids the best chances of survival and health and flourishing for at least a million years. Science just makes the process by which we make choices more systematic.  

With it, we don’t have certainties, but we are not left with a skepticism that ends in mental and physical paralysis. We have options, each of which has odds. We strive to keep learning more about them because we want to act with better and better probabilities of surviving. This is enough. We don’t need any more justification for dumping postmodernism.  

Postmodernism steers and commends us to confusion, error, and futility. To choose any of those is irrational.  

It’s true that we can learn from studying all of the world’s cultures, especially the ones different from our own. Recent experience has shown us that there are sometimes good scientific reasons for other nations’ beliefs and customs. For their eating the foods that they do, their not killing certain animals, etc. Kimchi contains probiotics that are very good for digestion in all humans. Impetigo can be cured by careful cleaning of lesions, then exposing them to direct sunshine. Over the long haul of generations, cows are more valuable as draft animals and sources of milk and dung than as sources of beef. These morés from non-Western cultures have all been studied by Western science and have all been given scientific explanations.

Study of practices common in other cultures is done by scientists not because the postmodernists recommend, decry, or forbid it. It’s done because such study has proved useful.  

I estimate odds. Every day. My ancestors have done so for thousands of years.

I can learn, grow, and benefit from carefully examining the traditional morés, customs, and worldviews of other cultures. But always, I ask: what does the evidence say? What looks to be the action plan with the best survival odds?

This way of handling life by estimating the success odds of various explanations for events and then acting on my estimates is called Bayesianism. It is the way of science. All science does is make our estimating more systematic and efficient.   

So let’s close by mentioning the alternative right and their dizzy theories. For most theories offered by the alt right to explain events in today’s world, the odds are not impossible. Just very unlikely. The odds that Hilary Clinton is running a child porn ring out of a pizza parlor in New Jersey can’t be proven absolutely to be zero, but in my best estimation, they are one out of a bigger number than I can write.

That kind of thinking is closely associated, in my view, with the kind of thinking that “knows” a worldwide conspiracy of colored people is aiming to wipe out all Caucasians. Or that the 5000 wildfires that have occurred in Canada this year were set by government agents. Or that there is a secret New World Order manipulating most of the governments of the nations of the world. What are the odds that any conspiracy of the size that would be needed to perpetrate such plots could be kept secret? Thousands of people would be required and no one has spilled the beans?!!  

Have a decent day, in spite of - or maybe, because of - what the meteorologists are saying in your neck of the woods today. And keep reminding yourself: science is a way of sizing up the odds of the truth of propositions. It has won a lot of respect in our world because as an idea about how to view other ideas, it has so often worked. Gotten good results. Even when it has come to weak conclusions and made bad recommendations, it has corrected itself ...with better science.

                  Signed,

a guy who didn’t die of smallpox, polio, or any of at least a dozen other diseases

                         

                                             Thomas Bayes (creator of Bayesianism) 

                                                   (credit: Wikimedia Commons)